A selection of my thoughts that is suitable for the Internet. I think.

In defence of the middle ground

2016 has been a year of excesses. Maybe I’ve just spent more time on the Internet, but it seems to me that opinions, on just about everything, are extreme.

It is often said that we reinforce our opinions by seeking ideologically aligned friends, news sources and Internet feeds. But finding like-minded people is not that easy. Each person’s beliefs are varied, qualified and complicated in a strictly individual way. We can’t surround ourselves with others with whom we agree with on everything. It is easier to rally around the extreme opinions, which are often the most vocal.

I’ve started to see online attempts to escape the confirmation bubble by, say, following opposed activists on Twitter. I would commend this effort, but for the polarising way in which it usually plays out. We should expose ourselves to a variety of opinions to learn from their interface—instead we draw on dissimilar opinions that will legitimise our own.

The opposite, vocal and extreme position is a convenient target for our ridicule. We find it and parade it with donkey ears, drowning out the reasonable opposition which requires more effort to criticise. Worse still, we create extreme antagonism by exalting moderate dissent into caricatured straw men, which we can safely drag into the social space of our peers to destroy.

I’m not saying we should loose our passion, our conviction and our sense of righteousness. God knows we will certainly be needing those in 2017 and the years to come. I’m saying we should celebrate and encourage moderation: not moderation in the strength of our beliefs, but the right to hold moderate beliefs firmly.

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Author: Bruno Martin

I moved from Spain to the UK to study Biology. Now I'm back in Spain (most of the time) working as a science journalist.
I like being outdoors, I run, I swim and, some days, I dance swing.
You can ask me questions for or about this blog through the contact button on my page: about.me/martinbruno
View all posts by Bruno Martin